Dedicated print shops perform copying or duplication, production of multiple copies of an electronic document, and other printing-related tasks. Such print shops typically have a number of marking engines each capable of performing selected types of printing on selected media types. The types of printing a given marking engine can perform may for example include some, most, or all of: black, two-tone, or color printing, single-side printing, double-side printing, landscape- or portrait-orientation printing, and so forth. The media types can include, for example, paper of various sizes, weights, finishes, and so forth. Print shop equipment typically further includes various finishing capabilities, such as collation, hole-punching, stapling, binding, and so forth. The various pieces of equipment, such as the marking engines, paper handlers, and finishers, each have certain throughput characteristics. For example, one marking engine may be a “high-speed” printer that can print hundreds of sheets per minute, while another marking engine may operate at a lower maximum speed.
To maximize efficiency, the equipment of a print shop should be operating at close to full capacity. This suggests maximizing the number of print jobs in the queue for processing. On the other hand, if the number of queued print jobs is too high, then there will be a long turnaround time for completing print jobs.
Modern printing enterprises often include a number of print shops distributed over a geographical area. For example, a commercial copy center chain is a printing enterprise which may have locations distributed throughout a city or other geographical area. A government agency that produces large quantities of printed materials is another example of a printing enterprise that may have a number of print shop locations-distributed geographically.
In multi-shop printing enterprises, it is common practice for a print shop operating at near-maximum capacity to transfer some or all of a print job to another print shop operating at lower capacity. Such transfers are typically done in an ad hoc manner. For example, the manager of the overloaded print shop may telephone managers at other print shops to determine whether these other print shops may be able to accept additional printing work. Alternatively, the manager of a print shop operating at well below maximum capacity may call around to see if there is another print shop that has work available for transfer.
Such ad hoc transfer mechanisms are inefficient and cannot be expected to distribute the workload of the multi-shop printing enterprise in an efficient manner.